Peleton:The Pro Cycling thread (Now with 20% more TdF)

doghouse said:
Why inject if you can just turn on a motor?
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Absolutely. Just never occurred to me and looks like it only occurred to pro cycling fairly recently as well.

Nice of Lemond to weigh in on how to catch the cheaters
 
The rise in "mechanical doping" is interesting. I guess that it really only became feasible more recently, as reliable batteries became more and more compact.

I do wonder just how much help you get from it but I suppose that if you've got a reasonable chance at winning, then the addition of just a couple of metres could make a difference between taking the crown and being further down the list, so a little boost and the accompanying saving of muscular energy for a final sprint could make a considerable difference.

No doubt bikes will have to be x-rayed or scanned before races so as to identify whether they've got electrical motors concealed in the downtubes. They'd have to scan all of the replacement frames, too, just in case a rider deliberately found a reason to swap frames during a race.
 
Journeyman said:
The rise in "mechanical doping" is interesting. I guess that it really only became feasible more recently, as reliable batteries became more and more compact.

I do wonder just how much help you get from it but I suppose that if you've got a reasonable chance at winning, then the addition of just a couple of metres could make a difference between taking the crown and being further down the list, so a little boost and the accompanying saving of muscular energy for a final sprint could make a considerable difference.

No doubt bikes will have to be x-rayed or scanned before races so as to identify whether they've got electrical motors concealed in the downtubes. They'd have to scan all of the replacement frames, too, just in case a rider deliberately found a reason to swap frames during a race.
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The one cyclocross girl that got busted actually had it in a back up bike, not the one she was riding. Apparently the frame and wheel swapping was a tip off something was up.

But to the first point, apparently they get 50 or 60 watts out of these things, which is huge. Like miles ahead huge.
 
Probably a career ender for her.


meanwhile, the Tour de Romandie Prologue was quite wet today. Most of the favorites played it very safe.
 
Rambo said:
why the fuck are motorcycles such a problem all of a sudden? I never heard of people dying from camera bike accidents before this year
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I haven't heard of people dying before, but pretty much every year you see people crash, or have very, very near misses because of morons on the camera bikes trying to get a shot of one cyclist and causing a collision with another cyclist, or trying to zoom past the peloton to get up to the front.
 
Rambo said:
doghouse doghouse you follow this shit - why the fuck are motorcycles such a problem all of a sudden? I never heard of people dying from camera bike accidents before this year

http://fittish.deadspin.com/pro-cyclist-reportedly-in-coma-after-getting-run-over-b-1779295093
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Sorry, missed this earlier.

I am really not sure, but as Jman says there have always been issues. Google Johnny Hoogerland getting hit by a car. Maybe there are more bikes out there now? Really can't say but this year has been terrible for moto accidents.

This Giro just wrapped up by the way, and it was one of the most insane tours I've ever seen. Nibali comes from way down to take the Maglite Rosa on the penultimate stage. It was shades of LeMond in 1989.
 
After finishing Challenge Roubaix without a crash or a mechanical, I crashed on the local sunday morning ride and lost 1+3*1/2 Front teeth. Sometimes fate is strange.
 
Motorized doping - wtf - its using an engine in your fucking bike.
 
Few days in and Contador is 2/2 on crashing and lost a minute. Yeesh.
 
A great article about how Eddy Merckx used to train:

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news...y-merckxs-pre-1969-tour-de-france-week-240149

"He took virtually no rest, as you can see from this page in his training diary, which lists what he did in the week before his first Tour de France in 1969.

Sunday: Raced in the Belgian National Championships, 264 kilometres.

Monday: Did two races, a 110-kilometre criterium and an evening track meeting.

Tuesday: Raced in a kermesse, but retired after 35 kilometres because he’d been prevented from starting with the rest of the riders by people demanding his autograph.

Wednesday: Training with his team, 180 kilometres.

Thursday: Training on his own 270 kilometres!

Friday: Behind a Derny for 50 kilometres (this session was scheduled to be longer, but torrential rain made it too dangerous)

Saturday: Morning, 40 kilometres fast. Afternoon, 40 kilometres easy. Evening, the prologue of the Tour de France.

Merckx won six stages in that Tour, seven if you count the team time trial. He took the yellow jersey by almost 18 minutes, he won the green jersey, the King of the Mountains, the combined classification and the combativity award."
 
Lolol ol lolololooolooooolm

1K banner collapses and wipes out peleton.
 
^ I must say that I have never seen anyone pedalling like that before - leaning forward over the bars, sitting on the crossbar, legs quite bent. Perhaps he wanted to be more aerodynamic, but I think that the more traditional pose - sitting on the seat, hands on the horizontal bars near the stem, arms tucked in and elbows down - would have still been very aerodynamic, much more comfortable, and better for efficiency with regard to pedalling, too.

By the way, did you see the crash today (or yesterday now, perhaps)? Motorcycle had to stop due to crowds pressing on to the road, as the Tour organisers had decided to shorten the stage due to high winds and hadn't put up crowd barriers (even though they'd had 24 hours to do so). Porte crashed into the motorcycle and Froome and Mollema then crashed into him. Another motorbike then crashed into the back of Froome's bike!

To add to the farce, Froome then took off on foot, running up Mont Ventoux, until he was able to get another bike!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-...crash-to-keep-tour-lead/7631238?section=sport

7631240-3x2-940x627.jpg
 
Journeyman said:
^ I must say that I have never seen anyone pedalling like that before - leaning forward over the bars, sitting on the crossbar, legs quite bent. Perhaps he wanted to be more aerodynamic, but I think that the more traditional pose - sitting on the seat, hands on the horizontal bars near the stem, arms tucked in and elbows down - would have still been very aerodynamic, much more comfortable, and better for efficiency with regard to pedalling, too.
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It's pretty common on fast descents. I saw the other day one of the Aussies got up to 123km/h in the race which is insane. I've got to 96.3km/h and even thats not for the faint of heart.
 
HenryC said:
It's pretty common on fast descents.
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Really? Interesting. I've seen plenty doing the tucked head with arms right up against the stem and crossbar, but not when they're actually sitting on the crossbar. Surely the discomfort and the power that you'd lose due to the awkward pedalling position would negate any aerodynamic gains?

I've got up to about 85km/hr downhill on firetrails off-road, and that was pretty insane!
 
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